The Hungarian Academy of Sciences will celebrate its 200th anniversary in 2025. Among its members are many distinguished students and teachers who have left their mark not only on the Academy but also on the history of our institution. Loránd Eötvös (1848–1919) physicist, the namesake of our university was a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences from 1873.
Loránd Eötvös was born on 27 July 1848 in Buda. He completed his secondary schooling from 1857 at the Piarist monastery in Pest and as a private student. He began his university studies at the Faculty of Law and in 1867 enrolled at the University of Heidelberg, where he attended lectures on natural sciences by Gustav Robert Kirchhoff, Hermann Ludwig von Helmholtz and Robert Wilhelm Bunsen. He obtained his doctorate in 1870, and in 1871 he became a private tutor at the Budapest University of Science. In 1878, after the retirement of Ányos Jedlik, he was appointed head of the department of experimental physics. In the academic year 1891/92 he was Rector of the University, and between 1894 and 1895 he was Minister of Religion and Public Education. On the 100th anniversary of his death, the ELTE University Library and Archives commemorated his life and work with a major exhibition, the printed catalogue of which was published in 2023.